“In addition to bringing new levels of simplicity, customer engagement platforms should streamline daily operations, reduce costs, and allow customers to engage with brands how and when they wish,” – Oman Air
Customer engagement should be the bedrock of every business enterprise because customer dollars are critical to achieving business outcomes. We could say that a business is obliged to engage with its customers at multiple levels in the interests of sustaining business performance, expanding the customer base, maintaining a credible business reputation, and competing evenly with all players in the market. That said, we must note that a simple approach (or combinations thereof) to customer engagement is worth the time and effort because complex manoeuvres may fail and may lead to confusion and the resulting loss of customer trust. Therefore, customer engagement remains one of the primary aims of a serious business enterprise.
Conversations with customers imply that a business remains interested in listening to the customer’s voice; this dialogue-based approach should be marked as one of the lynchpins of customer engagement. We should note that this strategy is a simple, cost-effective approach to engage with customers; yet, the returns can be outsize when the execution is flawless. Conversations can be initiated and cultivated in both online and offline media because this dual approach helps to impart meaning and momentum to such activities. For instance, a business that deals in custom furniture and woodworks can choose to inaugurate a dialogue with customers inquiring about their choice of wood, their preference for design languages, wood-finishing and polishing lacquers, etc. We note that this simple inquiry can help the business to unearth substantial information from participating customers. This information can be leveraged to refine business strategies, offer market-beating products, and to raise the profile of the said business.
In a similar vein, a civil aviation services provider may choose to simplify/overhaul its customer engagement strategy by whittling away at complex questionnaires and reducing its queries to two questions. These queries may centre on customer likes and dislikes, high priority or low priority, service plusses and minuses. The information gleaned from the simple approach can help the airline to revisit its customer service strategies, refine its approach to the average customer, and create truly innovative service planks. We must note that this approach to customer engagement hinges on two premises: eliciting raw information from customers and an intelligent reading / in-depth examination of the motives that generate such information. The combination can work wonders for any business and may help to elevate, qualitatively, its approach to customer engagement.
We must note that a simple approach to engaging the customer springs from a business conviction that information gathered from customer engagement strategies should be analysed deeply. This conviction can help businesses to analyse said information from multiple approaches, seek deeper meaning in customer feedback, and eliminate blind spots in information analyses. For instance, a hospitality business that operates customer loyalty programmes may choose to survey the information generated by said programmes. A preliminary analysis can yield the numbers that are expected from such analysis. However, a deep dive into the numbers may yield information pertaining to the motives of customers that enrol in such programmes. Additional insights may indicate the actions necessary to commit more clients into the customer loyalty programs. We must note that the hospitality business can choose to combine these sets of information to drive business insights and prepare itself for future business scenarios.
Human beings live and operate in an information age, and therefore, businesses might consider using information as a primary driver for customer engagement strategies. Market news, industry updates, and industry information – these can be considered the nucleus of an information-driven customer engagement strategy. This strategy operates on the premise that customers need useful information to make choices and therefore, businesses may act to fulfil this latent customer demand. We note that businesses in every industry can leverage this approach in a bid to gain and exploit a competitive edge over their peers. For instance, a steady flow of structured information can be loaded onto a business website at regular intervals. This information can be the ‘hook’ that attracts customers to the website on a daily basis. Useful content may invite customer appreciation; this approach also offers significant scope for customer interaction because human beings remain creatures of habit. We could say that regular interaction with legions of customers can help the business to expand its market share and gain future business opportunities.
The considerable abilities of social media platforms can be leveraged as a customer engagement tool. This strategy hinges on the fact that social media is ubiquitous, has the potential to heavily influence consumer and customer behaviour, and represents an ‘immediate’ means to connect with customers. Therefore, every business must strive to inaugurate an active dialogue with its customers through social media platforms. These interactions can help a business to gain high visibility for its brands, foster consumer confidence and trust, operate a direct connection with its consumers, and pursue a variety of customer engagement strategies. In addition, various business functions such as product development, new business development, and service tiers can gain significantly from the information culled from social media interactions. Further, the ‘immediacy’ of social media interactions can offer businesses quick insights into customer preferences, market trends, customer feedback, and other such information. Therefore, a simple, yet integrated customer engagement strategy centred on social media technologies can offer businesses significant returns on their investment.
A simplicity-driven approach to customer engagement should place business value at the centre of transactions with each customer. The delivery of tangible business value should be a fundamental aim of every enterprise, because value remains central to the customer’s interests and motivations. This premise assumes more importance when we note that modern customers are subject to a surfeit of brands, products, and services. This situation prompts consumers and customers to switch loyalties and encourages them to try a variety of brands and products. Therefore, value for the customer’s money can be a defining attribute for the modern, successful business enterprise. For instance, a courier service that operates in multiple geographies can offer customers premium packaging for the documents and other shipping items. We note that this may entail additional expenditure for said business, but may help the courier service to attract and retain customers. The premium packaging can be said to be the key value differentiator that may help said business to achieve an outstanding brand reputation in all markets.
In the previous paragraphs, we have surveyed some of the techniques wherein, a business can deploy simplicity in its customer engagement strategies. We must note that simplicity is an elegant approach to conducting business because it reinforces and accentuates core business values. Therefore, businesses management groups and corporate chieftains must invest resources into simplifying customer engagement strategies; this assumes more significance because such strategies inherently value the customer’s time and money. Simplicity can also be viewed as the deployment of innovation in business practices, and therefore should be widely promoted in customer engagement strategies. A lengthy questionnaire is more likely to be discarded in the busy lives we live today; however, a simple format is more likely to elicit genuine consumer reactions that can be priceless to a business enterprise.
